Cape Ann Time Banks

Imagine finding someone who would be happy to do the chores you don’t like to do. Then imagine being able to offer a skill that you enjoy doing to someone who needs it. If that sounds good to you, you might like to join the Cape Ann TimeBank.

The Cape Ann Time Bank is a network of people who show that we care about each other, rewarding people for helping each other. Once you are a member, for every hour you help another member, you earn a Time Dollar. Then you can use that Time Dollar to have a neighbor help you: getting a ride, picking up medication, learning the computer, gardening, etc.

You may already have friends or family who help each other out. We are lucky to live in a place where old-fashioned community is still readily available. What the time bank does is to offer this kind of caring support to anyone who needs it.

Time Bank members use a simple Internet-based system (at www.community.timebanks.org) to list what they want to give and what services they would like to receive. The website introduces Time Bank members to each other, facilitates the exchange of services and keeps track of the hours exchanged. We also have monthly potluck suppers where members and interested people can meet each other and set up service exchanges.

Mission:The mission of the CATB is to build community among a wide range of residents of Cape Ann and to empower them to contribute to each other’s well-being through giving and receiving services.

Goals and Objectives: The Cape Ann TimeBank seeks to include every resident of Cape Ann in such a healing community. In this vision the reciprocity and empowerment culture of Time Banking pervades all aspects of life on Cape Ann so that using Time Dollars™ (TD$) is as widespread a practice as using regular (federal) dollars. Eventually the community could pay time dollars to citizens for their membership on local boards and commissions. Services will be exchanged among individual members to meet their particular needs and the time bank membership will serve as a pool of ready labor to assist with community projects such as cleaning and painting a community 0rganization’s office space and/or individual projects such as moving.

The Cape Ann TimeBank serves two functions: building community within neighborhoods and developing a complementary currency to US federal dollars. TD$ are a community currency where one hour of time spent helping someone else earns one TD$. With the earned TD$, a community member can receive an hour’s assistance from someone else. Through Community Weaver (TM), a sophisticated web-based software program, time bank members advertise their services to each other, contact each other and maintain an account of the TD$ they have earned and spent.

For years we have heard the maxim, “it takes a village to raise a child.” The Cape Ann TimeBank provides what it takes to build and sustain that village. The services exchanged through a time bank are core functions of a healthy society – childcare, transportation, eldercare, handyman services, homework help, cooking, respite care, office assistance, yard work, companionship and house-cleaning, to name a few. Services can also be wide-ranging: Feng Shui, acupuncture for pets, Icelandic lessons, etc.